I watched another old film by Lina Wertmüller, whose films I always watched with interest, Pasqualino’s Seven Beauties, shot in 1975. In the lead role, as she almost always has, Giancarlo Giannini. The film is shot in a rather complex genre of tragicomedy, especially given the presence of military themes in it. The film is also famous
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I watched another old film by Lina Wertmüller, whose films I always watched with interest, Pasqualino’s Seven Beauties, shot in 1975. In the lead role, as she almost always has, Giancarlo Giannini. The film is shot in a rather complex genre of tragicomedy, especially given the presence of military themes in it. The film is also famous for the fact that for the first time a female director was nominated for an Oscar (the film has 4 nominations). The film takes place in two time planes - carefree (at first) pre-war time and the end of the war, during which deserted from the army Pasqualino still manages to get into a concentration camp. This is the story of a completely ordinary petty Neapolitan crook, a kind of self-confident fool, filled with responsibility for his seven very unattractive sisters and trying to preserve their honor and the honor of his family and getting into prison, then into a madhouse, in which he again manages to get into trouble, from which he runs to the front. Unlike many such films, we do not see the director’s attempts to portray what is happening with the greatest realism, on the contrary – the more terrible scenes, the stronger the grotesque, which makes the adventures of a rather stupid hero acquire a completely different, deeper meaning. The hero’s desire to survive at any cost turns into a complete spiritual collapse for him. In the end, when the survivor Pasqualino returns home to the joyful cries of the sisters "alive and unharmed", we see a completely different Pasqualino - unharmed, yes, but alive?
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